Donahue, Thomas compile stories of dozens of other couples for ‘What Makes a Marriage Last’
When Phil met Marlo, they were so famous that last names were superfluous. Maybe they still are, more than 40 years later, as this pair of octogenarians sit in their New York City apartment and say …
He: “Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter have been married for 74 years this July. They read the Bible to each other every night before going to bed.”
She: “We aren’t experts or psychologists. We just went out to find out what makes marriages last.”
They are, befitting these troubled times, talking to and seeing me on a computer screen, as I am them. They look very good. He (last name Donahue) is 84 years old. She (last name Thomas) is 80. They are eager to talk about their new book, their first literary collaboration which is titled “What Makes a Marriage Last: 40 Celebrated Couples Share with Us the Secrets to a Happy Life” (HarperOne).
That title is somewhat misleading. This is not a “how-to” manual. Nor does it give some sort of quick-fix answers that would make it suitable for the self-help section of your bookstore. Rather it is a collection of what amounts to short stories about love and the ways in which it can make you happy and drive you mad. It is tender and sweet at times but also peppered with such troubles as drug addiction, infidelity, money woes … the whole pile of humanity.
The 40 couples — which include Ron and Cheryl Howard (married in 1975), Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner (2013 but together for decades), John McEnroe and Patty Smyth (1997), Deepak and Rita Chopra (1970), Mariska Hargitay and Peter Hermann (2004), Al Roker and Deborah Roberts (1995), Billy and Janice Crystal (1970), Alan and Arlene Alda (1957), and many more — the book is more than 600 pages long — offer all manner of honest insights.
The seed of his book came in 2019 when Marlo and Phil learned that friends of theirs were getting divorce after 38 years of marriage. They talked about marriage and what makes one work.
They drifted back to the past, to 1977 when Marlo, the daughter of famous comedian Danny Thomas, title star of an ABC sitcom called “That Girl,” movie star and producer, notable feminist and “famously single,” was a guest on Phil’s his wildly popular and eponymous talk show which was taped here. He was a divorced father living in Winnetka where he was fathering four sons.
Now, when people watch a YouTube clip of a later interview, they will tell you that they can see sparks were flying, and they would not be wrong.
They started dating, split up for a short time and were married on May 21, 1980. They lived here for decade, Marlo commuting most of the time from jobs on the coasts. Then and ever since they have been remarkably private about their private lives. That’s admirable for such a high-profile pair.
And so they made a list of people they knew, or knew of, who had had lengthy marriages. They started arranging interviews. The only couples to turn them down, gently mind you, were George and Laura Bush and Barack and Michelle Obama.
Kevin Bacon needed some persuasion, at first saying “no thanks” and telling them, “My piece of advice is not to take advice from celebrities.”
He finally agreed and he and his wife Kyra Sedgwick (1988) are compelling and forthright, talking about their losing millions due to Bernie Madoff. Most every one of the couples has something to offer.
“We immediately discovered that the more we shared about our relationship the more they opened up about theirs,” Phil says. “We first thought these interviews might be 20, 30 minutes. They would be two, three hours.”
They share some of themselves in throughout the conversations. They also do so in a pair of short forewords in which we learn “Marriage. Wow. I was the girl who never wanted any part of it. That’s because marriage didn’t seem like a roomy enough place for me — and that’s putting it nicely” (Marlo) and “I knew from the moment I met her in the dressing room that here was a guest who would never, ever let me die on the air. She also had a great body, and had the year been 1953 she would have been what we Catholics called an ‘impure thought’” (Phil).
They traveled across the country and made one trip to Canada, to see Elton John and David Furnish (2014). They were determined for a face-to-face encounter. “Sort of like we were having double dates,” said Marlo. Many of the couples provided snacks and wine.
They traveled to Chicago to interview Jesse and Jacqueline Jackson, who have been married since 1962 and were only one of two couples that recorded the ensuing conversation. (The other was journalists Bob Woodward and Elsa Walsh, who also
told them that the first time she knew how he felt about her was when “he told her who Deep Throat was.”)
And so they talked and then, “As we talked of jealousy and fidelity, topics we’d broached with every couple, the conversation went into territory that was arguably the most sensitive chapter of the Jackson’s fifty-eight-year marriage.”
What follows are details of the affair that Rev. Jackson had in the 1990s with a political scientist and the female child that resulted.
“I was shocked that it even came up,” said Phil. “I had interviewed the reverend a number of times.” Twenty-two times on his show, if you are counting.
Says Marlo, “Phil and I just went with it and all during the conversation I really understood how much Jacqueline is her own woman. I admire and I love her.”
Why not? Mrs. Jackson was very frank, saying, “I have five children. Reverend has six.”
Phil and Marlo spend many hours of their cooped-up days on promotional chores for and interviews about their book. Each has their own office. In his Phil watches a lot of TV, saying “I am a politics junkie.
How to explain this time to the yet unborn? How did this happen? I really think there will be more books written about the Trump era than have been written about Abraham Lincoln.”
With their housekeeper of 30 years cooped up elsewhere, Phil and Marlo are nicely fending for themselves. They cook dinners together and Phil has learned to operate the washer and dryer
Marlo juggles so many projects, including work for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, that her father helped found in the 1950s, that her husband playfully refers to her as his “water bug.”
They are very happy with their book, which is sitting on a variety of bestseller lists. This month they plan to embark on a podcast based on the book.
Couldn’t help it but I asked them what it feels like to be in their 80s.
“I don’t think a lot about that,” said Marlo, smiling.
Phil said, “As you get into your 80s, you do start to wonder. … But I am learning more about her every day. It’s all very interesting, this latest chapter in my life.”
She leaned over and rested her head on his shoulder.